Crisis Far From Over, Gov. Cooper Warns

Florence Creating Housing Shortage for Displaced North Carolinians

No Way In, No Way Out Of North Carolina City

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For updates on the storm and its aftermath, read our latest news here.

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Florence Death Toll Now Stands at 41

Water surrounds a home in the aftermath of Florence on Tuesday, in Lumberton, N.C.Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The death toll from Hurricane Florence and the storm’s long-lasting floodwaters continues to rise.

At least 41 deaths have now been linked to the storm in the Carolinas and Virginia, according to authorities in those states. North Carolina alone had 31 storm-related fatalities as of Thursday morning, the state's public-safety department reported on its website. South Carolina has recorded nine storm-related deaths, and there was one death in Virginia.

—Jon Kamp

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Florence Death Toll Rises to 36

Responders congregated Wednesday near where two people drowned the previous evening in Marion County, S.C.Gerald Herbert/Associated Press

The number of deaths linked to Hurricane Florence rose late Tuesday when two women drowned in a Horry County Sheriff’s Office van caught in flood waters in South Carolina, according to local officials.

The van was transporting two women, both in their 40s, when it was swept away in the Little Pee Dee River in Marion County, S.C., according to local coroner Jerry Richardson. Their deaths bring the number of fatalities linked to the storm to at least 36 in the Carolinas and Virginia.

The coroner said both women were mental-health patients who were being transported to a hospital. By Tuesday afternoon authorities were still unable to recover the bodies due to rising waters.

Horry County Sheriff Phillip Thompson confirmed the deaths in a statement, and said his office is working with the state’s natural resources department to try and recover the van. Both deputies inside were able to escape and have been placed on administrative leave, and the incident is under investigation, the sheriff said.

One woman was from North Carolina, the other from South Carolina.

“Last night we had a tragedy,” the sheriff said. “We are working hand-in-hand with the State Law Enforcement Division to cooperate in this investigation. Two additional investigations including a traffic investigation and an internal investigation are taking place.”

--Jon Kamp

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'Hurricane Deductibles' Could Increase Costs for Homeowners

A flooded home in Linden, N.C., on Tuesday.Joe Raedle/Getty Images

As homeowners affected by Hurricane Florence start to file insurance claims, they might be surprised by how high their deductibles are.

Many insurance policies in coastal states include "hurricane deductibles," or higher-than-normal deductibles that apply when the damage was caused by a hurricane or other specific catastrophe. These deductibles are usually a set percentage of the total insured value of the home.

For example, a homeowner whose house is insured up to $200,000 with a 5% hurricane deductible would be responsible for the first $10,000 of hurricane-related damage to the building.

In North Carolina, most homeowners have 1% deductibles for damage caused by named storms, according to the state department of insurance.

In South Carolina, hurricane deductibles range from 1% to 10%, according to that state's insurance department.

For the South Carolina Wind and Hail Underwriting Association, which provides wind and hail insurance to high-risk coastal homes, the majority of policyholders have 3% hurricane deductibles, executive director Smitty Harrison said.

--Nicole Friedman and Leslie Scism

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FEMA Chief Tours Emergency-Response Center

WILMINGTON, N.C.—FEMA Administrator Brock Long toured a New Hanover County emergency-response center on Tuesday afternoon with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. Mr. Long shook hands with and thanked search-and-rescue team members who were being housed on long rows of cots in the center of a converted former Sears store.

Mr. Long assured county commissioners and other local elected officials in one-on-one conversations that FEMA was ready to come to their aid, after being unable to reach the city for several days because of rain and flooded roads.

Mr. Long spoke briefly at a news conference with the governor, but excused himself before questions were being asked. When a reporter approached him and asked whether, in hindsight, he may have inadvertently broken the law, he said, “I’m not worried about the investigation. I’m totally focused on the people and Florence.”

Mr. Long is under investigation for allegedly using taxpayers’ money to commute frequently between Washington and his home in Hickory, N.C.

--Valerie Bauerlein

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Florence's Flooding, Explained

Kenny Babb gathered items that floated out of his garage as the Little River continued to rise in Linden, N.C., on Tuesday.David Goldman/Associated Press

The National Weather Service is warning of continued flooding in North Carolina as the rain dumped by Hurricane Florence makes its way from the state’s swollen tributaries and coastal rivers to the Atlantic.

Here’s why and how that will happen, as explained by some local experts:

First, think of a river basin like a bathtub, says Upper Neuse Riverkeeper Matthew Starr.

“If you shut the shower curtain and just spray water inside the tub, no matter where that water falls it will make its way to the centerline of the tub, “ Mr. Starr said. “So the centerline of the tub is the Neuse River. Every other component of the shower is the river basin and it just funnels all that water to the main stem of the Neuse.”

Florence had a lot of time to drop a lot of rain, much of which landed in the upper part of many of the state’s coastal rivers, added Cape Fear Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette. That rain first saturated the ground, then began moving across it, seeking a lower point.

Things get complicated, he said, where you have smaller rivers feeding into larger ones.

“As the water in the larger river rises, where that smaller river wants to flow into the larger river, the larger river is almost acting like a dam,” Mr. Burdette said. “The smaller river can’t run out the way it wants to so you start to back up.”

The storm surges spawned by a Florence have also been acting as a dam for rivers trying to empty into the ocean.

“When that storm surge pushes in,” he said, “then the water raises up and it's harder for rivers to get water out. And then you get bands of rain and that just compounds that.”

Sarah Jamison, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Newport/Morehead City, said people in the region should expect flooding to continue for at least the next several days, given the amount of rain that has fallen. At the last update she had, Elizabethtown, N.C., had gotten almost 36 inches of rain from Florence.

She called the rain, storm surge, and flooded rivers a triple whammy for the state.

“This was not a one-two punch, it was a one-three punch,” Ms. Jamison said. “The storm just took forever to leave.”

--Erin Ailworth

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Claims Start to Roll in for Insurers

State Farm, the biggest home insurer by market share in hard-hit North Carolina, says it has received “approximately 890 auto and approximately 6,190 homeowner claims in North Carolina related to Hurricane Florence.” In South Carolina, where it also is the top home insurer, it has received about 250 auto and 940 homeowner claims.

Across the Southeast, State Farm is the biggest home insurer with about a fifth of the market. Industrywide, standard home policies exclude storm surge and other flooding damage but typically cover damage to houses from high winds and fallen trees. Comprehensive auto policies cover damage to flooded vehicles.

Standard homeowners’ insurance policies typically cover much of the damage that can happen to a structure, but they exclude storm surge, other flooding and, in some coastal counties, wind damage. In some locations, homeowners must buy separate policies to get the excluded coverage, often from state-run last-resort insurance pools. For flood policies, they typically buy from the U.S. government.

In North Carolina, many coastal homeowners obtain coverage for wind damage from the nonprofit Coastal Property Insurance Pool, created by the North Carolina legislature in the late 1960s. The pool also sells broader home policies. Gina Schwitzgebel, general manager of the North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association, says the Insurance Pool has received 14,955 claims so far. Its claims from Hurricane Matthew in 2016 totaled 10,771.

--Leslie Scism

Corrections & Amplifications

North Carolina's Coastal Property Insurance Pool is a nonprofit created by the North Carolina legislature. An earlier version of this post wrongly said it is is state-run.

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In Wilmington, Lines Form for MREs and Water

Marqui Rice picked up water and food from the Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, in Wilmington, N.C., on Tuesday.Caitlin Penna for The Wall Street Journal

Cars lined up around the block to pick up food and water in downtown Wilmington, N.C., at a distribution site organized by the Civil Air Patrol, the civilian auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force.

Marqui Rice picked up 2 gallon jugs of water and 36 military-issued field rations, known as a Meal, Ready to Eat, or MRE, to share with his housemates. “With this, I should be able to make it for a few more days,” said Mr. Rice, a 19 year-old who works on the loading dock at Wal-Mart.

His friend, Victor Freeman, the 54 year-old lead singer of a Motown cover band, said he hadn’t eaten an MRE since his brother brought one home when he was in the military years ago. But Mr. Freeman said he remembered them being pretty good and he thought it would be nice to have a hot meal, as the MRE comes with a small heating element.

There were long lines at meal distribution sites run by the government and by charities around Wilmington, as the city continues to be largely cut off from the rest of the state by flooding.

--Valerie Bauerlein

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Crisis Far From Over, Gov. Cooper Warns

As the remnants of Hurricane Florence dumped heavy rain in New England, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper continued to warn that the flooding crisis there is far from over.

Sixteen rivers in the state remain at major flood stages, and three won’t crest until Wednesday or Thursday, the governor said. More than 1,100 roads in the state are still closed, including interstates 95 and 40, he said.

“Sunshine doesn’t necessarily mean safety,” Mr. Cooper said, speaking at a press conference Tuesday. “Rivers continue to rise and we will see more flooding.”

The state has now recorded 26 storm-related fatalities, the governor said. Combined with people killed in South Carolina and Virginia, Florence is responsible for at least 33 deaths in the region.

At least 10,000 people remain in North Carolina shelters and countless more are staying with family or in hotels, the governor said. There are still more than 317,000 customers without power in the state, according to reports from local utilities.

--Jon Kamp

State Road 76 in Fair Bluff, N.C., was blocked by flood waters on Tuesday.RANDALL HILL/REUTERS

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A Survivor's Tale: 'I Prayed to See the Light of Day'

James Baker sits at a bed-and-breakfast in New Bern, N.C., where he is staying after trying to ride out Florence on his yacht.Erin Ailworth

As Florence rolled into New Bern, N.C., as a Category 1 hurricane last week, the resulting storm surge tossed the yacht called “Mad Hatteras” some eight feet in the air, before slamming the 70-foot vessel back into the water.

The yacht pitched and rolled, then went up again, straining the dozen or so lines anchoring it to the dock at the Bridge Pointe Hotel & Marina, located where the Neuse and Trent Rivers converge then flow toward the Atlantic.

Eventually, the lines along the bow snapped. Storm surge swung the boat over the dock’s pilings, where they hammered the bottom of the yacht.

Aboard the yacht, James Baker figured it was only a matter of time before a piling punctured the boat’s underside. Visiting from Arizona to renovate the recently purchased yacht, he had wanted to dry dock the Mad Hatteras ahead of the storm, but there were no open slips. Sailing out became impossible when a nearby drawbridge closed at noon on Wednesday.

“Do I stay while it sinks or try to make it to land,” he recalls asking himself as Florence tossed the Mad Hatteras to and fro.

He removed his sandals, grabbed a flashlight and headed topside, where storm surge was sending the dock heaving upward about 10 feet. Up, down, up, down, he counted, timing his descent to the dock. The force of the water roiling beneath it had forced screws along the dock up like spikes. Broken sections of the walkway were snapping open and closed like alligator jaws.

Mr. Baker isn’t quite sure how he made it.

“Once I got on the dock, I could not stand up because it was 80 to 100 mile an hour winds,” he said. “I had to crawl while it was heaving sideways and up and down. I can tell you, all my years of surfing, I just went with each roll.”

Around him, other boats were bashing against the dock. As he passed one 50-foot vessel, the dock disappeared behind him, broken away.

An aluminum ramp to land was pitched and flapping in the wind. The marina’s clubhouse was half underwater.

“There was no land to see so at that point, I knew I was pretty much screwed,” Mr. Baker said. “No way could I swim.”

Then he spotted a 25-foot sailboat that appeared to still be relatively well secured. He managed to climb aboard, ultimately taking shelter inside a canvas and vinyl awning still protecting part of the boat’s cockpit.

Outside a strange screech penetrated the night. He later learned it came from the boat rubbing against a large piece of floating foam that had wedged itself between the boat and the dock, keeping the boat from breaking apart whenever the water pushed it into the dock.

“I prayed to see the light of day,” Mr. Baker said. “And when the light of day came, I was thankful for that because there were several times I though the boat was going over.”

By then, the tide had receded enough that Mr. Baker was able to make his way to what was left of the ramp to shore, where the marina’s dock manager spotted him and helped get him to the marina’s hotel. Eventually, he ended up at a shelter, then a bed-and-breakfast downtown.

“I feel great today,” he said on Tuesday morning as he sipped a cup of coffee in the B&B’s living room. “I felt like a sailor washed up on shore there for a while.”

While he said he isn't afraid to get back out on the water, he won’t be trying to weather another hurricane.

“If it comes around ever again, I’m getting the hell out of here, period,” he said.

--Erin Ailworth

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Florence Damage Estimated up to $4.6 Billion

Catastrophe-modeling firm AIR Worldwide pegs Hurricane Florence’s wind and storm surge damage, in an early estimate, at $1.7 billion to $4.6 billion. The estimate includes damage to insured property including homes, cars and commercial buildings, as well as additional living expenses for homeowners and business interruption for businesses.

Another estimate released Monday from damage-modeling firm Karen Clark & Co. pegged Florence’s non-flood damage at $2.5 billion. Both estimates are lower than the insured damage predicted early last week, when Florence was expected to make landfall at higher wind speeds. The estimates don't include Florence’s flooding damage, which is still growing.

No Way In, No Way Out Of North Carolina City

Florence Death Toll Rises to 31

The death toll from Florence reached at least 31 in the Carolinas and Virginia, as North Carolina continued to grapple with cresting rivers and washed-out roads after several days of extreme rainfall.

The state’s public-safety website, which has been tallying storm-related fatalities, recently listed 25 deaths in North Carolina linked to the storm. They are spread among 14 counties in the state. Emergency-management officials in South Carolina said that state had seen six Florence-related deaths.

The North Carolina deaths include a one-year-old boy whose body was found Monday after he was swept away in storm waters.

From the North Carolina Department of Public Safety:
Storm-Related Fatalities: 25

U.S. Delays Test of Presidential Alerts

Bob Richling carries Iris Darden, 84, out of her flooded home in Spring Lake, N.C., on Monday.David Goldman/Associated Press

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Trucking, Deliveries at Standstill in Flooded Areas

Commercial transportation was at a near standstill across the areas hit by rising flood waters, with trucking and parcel-delivery services across a swath of the Carolinas suspended because roads were unpassable.

A FedEx Corp. service alert reported “major service disruptions and delays in multiple areas” due to extensive damage and flooding in North and South Carolina, with ground and freight service temporarily suspended in dozens of cities in both states. United Parcel Service Inc. said there would be no pickups or deliveries in some 190 North Carolina ZIP codes affected by the storm, according to a Monday service alert.

Virginia officials said some 200 secondary roads in that state were closed Monday morning as the remnants of Florence dumped enormous rainfall in its slow northwest churn toward the Ohio Valley.

The estimate doesn't include damage that would be covered under the federal government's National Flood Insurance Program. The figure is dramatically lower than costs bandied about when Florence was a Category 4 storm; it made landfall Friday morning as a Category 1 storm.